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The resident Tomas Anez Dos Santos worked in a small clearing deep in the Peruvian Amazon when he noticed footsteps approaching through the dense woodland.

It dawned on him that he stood surrounded, and halted.

“One positioned, aiming using an bow and arrow,” he remembers. “Unexpectedly he detected of my presence and I started to run.”

He ended up confronting the Mashco Piro. For decades, Tomas—dwelling in the modest community of Nueva Oceania—served as practically a neighbour to these itinerant people, who shun contact with foreigners.

An updated report from a human rights organization claims there are at least 196 described as “isolated tribes” in existence worldwide. The Mashco Piro is believed to be the largest. It says half of these communities could be wiped out within ten years if governments neglect to implement additional actions to defend them.

It argues the most significant risks are from timber harvesting, extraction or drilling for crude. Isolated tribes are extremely at risk to common sickness—therefore, the report says a danger is caused by interaction with proselytizers and social media influencers looking for clicks.

Lately, the Mashco Piro have been venturing to Nueva Oceania increasingly, according to residents.

Nueva Oceania is a fishermen's community of a handful of clans, located elevated on the banks of the Tauhamanu waterway in the center of the of Peru rainforest, half a day from the most accessible village by watercraft.

The territory is not designated as a safeguarded area for isolated tribes, and timber firms work here.

Tomas says that, at times, the sound of logging machinery can be detected around the clock, and the Mashco Piro people are observing their woodland disturbed and ruined.

In Nueva Oceania, residents report they are conflicted. They are afraid of the projectiles but they also have profound respect for their “kin” who live in the forest and wish to protect them.

“Let them live in their own way, we can't change their way of life. This is why we preserve our separation,” explains Tomas.

Residents in Nueva Oceania are concerned about the damage to the community's way of life, the threat of aggression and the possibility that deforestation crews might subject the Mashco Piro to diseases they have no resistance to.

While we were in the settlement, the group made themselves known again. Letitia Rodriguez Lopez, a resident with a young daughter, was in the jungle picking produce when she noticed them.

“We detected cries, shouts from individuals, a large number of them. As if there were a large gathering yelling,” she shared with us.

That was the first instance she had encountered the group and she ran. After sixty minutes, her head was still racing from anxiety.

“Because exist loggers and operations cutting down the forest they're running away, maybe due to terror and they come close to us,” she stated. “We are uncertain how they might react towards us. This is what frightens me.”

Recently, two individuals were assaulted by the tribe while angling. One man was wounded by an projectile to the gut. He recovered, but the second individual was discovered dead days later with multiple puncture marks in his physique.

Authorities in Peru has a approach of non-contact with secluded communities, establishing it as illegal to initiate encounters with them.

The strategy was first adopted in a nearby nation following many years of advocacy by tribal advocacy organizations, who noted that first interaction with secluded communities resulted to entire communities being wiped out by sickness, poverty and hunger.

In the 1980s, when the Nahau tribe in the country made initial contact with the world outside, a significant portion of their people died within a matter of years. A decade later, the Muruhanua people faced the same fate.

“Isolated indigenous peoples are very at risk—in terms of health, any exposure may spread sicknesses, and even the simplest ones may decimate them,” says a representative from a tribal support group. “From a societal perspective, any exposure or disruption can be very harmful to their existence and well-being as a group.”

For local residents of {